Ultra-Orthodox Quotes
Most Islamic fundamentalists oppose the education of girls. Malala Yousafzai as a teen ager spoke out encouraging girls to go to school. This offended some of the Taliban fundamentalist terrorist, who threatened her if she continued to speak out. When she continued, they tried to murder her. They shot her in the head, but she was airlifted for medical treatment and survived. She was the winner of the European Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and nominated for the Nobel Prize.
In 2016 Hoffman was part of a congregation of Jews who carried Holy Torahs (Handwritten scrolls of the first 5 Books of the Old Testament and most sacred document to Jewish people) to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The group included men and women. With the religious politics of Israel, the “custody and management” of the holiest of Jewish site, the Western Wall of the original Temple, had been awarded to an Ultra-Orthodox sect which had ruled that women should not be allowed to pray at the Wailing Wall—only males. The majority of Jews, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Modern have no such gender bias. When they were rebuffed beforeaall, the case ended up in the Israeli Supreme Court which ruled that women as well as man had an absolute right to pray. After some delay, the government created an area where women and gender integrated groups could pray and hold ceremonies at The Wall. However, the ultra orthodox, still managing the facility, also believed that women carrying and leading prayers from a Torah was sacrilegious. When the mixed gender group approached The Wall with Torahs, a mob of ultra orthodox surrounded the gender integrated group and started roughing them up. The quotation describes the feelings of the the group who for the fist time since Israel regained control of the Western Wall in 1967 (Arabs then prevented any Jews from praying at The Wal) had a gender mixed group of Jews conduct a service at the Wailing Wall.
Hadadi are the Ultra Orthodox Jews of Israel and Rauchberger. At the time the Reform Jewish Movement, the most popular branch of Judiasm in America, was not regognized in Israel where only Orthoxox Jewry is officially recognized by the Conservative government. In this case, the Israeli Jewish Refom Movement had taken the Jeruselem to Court for violating the Israeil Constitution. 9 of the public libraries in Jeruselem were segregated by gender in different hours. That meant that a mother could not take her son to one of these public school libraries and teach him to select books or particiapate in library activities or services. The Haradi did not believe in separation of church and state and in this telling quotation, the Rabbo insists that the people will do as their rabbis instruct regardless of the laws or the Constitution.
